A Study of Family Relations in the Urban Middle-Class Home - A Changing Value System between Parents and Their Son's Family -
Jung Woo Lee
ABSTRACT
As Korean society of today is rapidly changing, the value system which has been traditionally accepted in the family ought to undergo inevitable changes. This paper aims at investigating and analyzing the prevalent value system of the family and the degree to which it is changing in the middle-class families in Seoul. Particular attention has been paid in this paper to the relationship between a married women and her mother-in-law. The conclusion at which this paper has arrived are as follows : (1) more than the half of both married women and their mothers-in-law of the middle class in Seoul feel satisfaction for the family life ; yet the rest who have responded in terms of "average" seem in fact to feel unsatisfactory in their marriage, even though they do not specifically regard themselves "unhappy" ; (2) generally, married women, including their mothers-in-law, prefer the independent, autonomous household management ; (3) both married women and their mothers-in-law wish to live independently but the former prefer the living-together with their mothers-in-law ; (4) married women plan to support economically the parents-in-law more than the latter want to be supported ; (5) the relationship between the parents-in-law and the married women is regarded as "good" by 62% of the former while the latter in 41% only see it in "good" terms, which indicates actually their unhappy psychological state ; (6) married women in general dislike their husband's sisters in comparison with their mothers-in-law, which seems to betray the commonly accepted view that married women go worst off with their mothers-in-law ; (7) the absolute majority of women, whether a parent and her son's wife, believe that the maintenance of a good relationship between families is essential to the happiness of marriage ; (8) surprisingly, a great majority of married women whichever their side may be think that no interference with their children's home is better ; (9) more than a half of mothers-in-law expect their son's wife to live distance from her own parents ; (10) married women believe that the good cause for a better marriage lies in mutual understanding and help exchangeable between them and their mothers-in-law. This investigation has shown, to be sure, some of the salient problems in family relations which will certainly encourage further attempts to study.
PDF Links
Full text via DOI 
Download Citation 
Supplement 
